Welcome to queer Muslim TikTok

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"Why is it the norm that every time a queer Muslim person exists, it's a shock?"  Queer Muslim influencers are taking the internet by storm by making a space for themselves on social media …

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00:00Why is it the norm every time a queer Muslim person exists?

00:03It's a shock.

00:04Being confident in my queer and trans self,

00:06that is something that I was never able to do.

00:10Doing that on TikTok is so empowering

00:18because it's so in your face.

00:19And if you want to comment hate, do that.

00:21But my video is still up.

00:30I love the queer and trans Muslim community on TikTok because it feels like we radically

00:47and unapologetically accept and love and celebrate each other.

00:53And in trying to figure out our space, we are revolutionizing the way that people talk

00:57about us and talk about Islam and talk about queerness and transness.

01:11Also, I've seen the hashtags and one hashtag is Queer Muslims.

01:16If you scroll through that, you could scroll through that for a day.

01:20And I was like, yo, we're really out here.

01:23I think that TikTok itself invites this very playful, creative side of people.

01:30The way that it connects people, I think, is actually really incredible.

01:34And that's been the part that has been super meaningful, is to be able to connect with

01:39people from across the globe and realize that we are having parallel experiences.

01:45So I'm not going to lie, at first it was just like, I've not seen a lot of Black queer Muslims.

01:59And I was like, hold on, what's going on?

02:02And I think I did address it at one of my TikToks.

02:04I think TikTok is inclusive to the happy-go-lucky queer and trans Muslims, and they are not

02:15inclusive to queer and trans Muslims who are angry, who are responding to the hate in the

02:21community.

02:22How are you so fast?

02:24It's been 45 minutes.

02:27You're queer.

02:35Haram is an Arabic term, but it is used in Muslim communities to define something as

02:43sinful, something that is not allowed in the Islamic faith.

02:47Quite a few times.

02:4850 times?

02:49More.

02:50100 times?

02:51More.

02:52200 times?

02:53More.

02:54500 times?

02:55Probably.

02:56Police, I would say, are folks that almost operate as, like, police within our own community

03:06to police others.

03:09I'm not trying to trigger y'all, trigger warning before y'all go into this conversation.

03:12People say the most out-of-pocket, binary things to us.

03:16My favorite line is, like, there's no such thing as a queer and Muslim person or a trans

03:21and Muslim person, even though there are people literally having this embodied experience.

03:27And then I said,

03:28Haram!

03:29Haram!

03:30Haram!

03:31Haram!

03:32Haram!

03:33Haram!

03:34Haram!

03:35Haram!

03:36Haram!

03:37Haram!

03:38Haram!

03:39So they start with a compliment, like saying, oh, live your best life, but I'll be praying

03:43for you.

03:44I can't feed my sister.

03:45I can't feed my brother.

03:46And it's like, no.

03:47You're being hateful.

03:48You're being negative.

03:49Like, there's no love in this interaction.

03:59We don't give a f**k, we are Somalis, we are gays, and we don't live in our own truth.

04:06So why worry about us, worry about the business I pay y'all.

04:10I think Haram police have a very particular version of Islam in their mind.

04:16And when people don't adhere to that version of Islam, then automatically that person gets

04:22canceled.

04:23At the same time, it's hard to have this conversation with people outside of the Muslim community

04:28because we don't want to invite Islamophobia.

04:29When I call out straight Muslim men on being homophobic, the keywords there are straight

04:34and man.

04:35It's misogyny, patriarchy, and heteronormativity.

04:38Homophobia and transphobia at the level that it exists today in Muslim majority communities

04:43did not come out of Muslim majority communities.

04:45It came out of colonizers coming into our lands and imposing their own extreme homophobic

04:52and transphobic views into our communities.

04:55Whether it's the Haram police, whether it's a white supremacist, like whatever, whoever

04:59it is that has an issue with what they see as a contradiction is actually more a reflection

05:06of how they feel internally about sexuality and gender than it has to do with me.

05:15Being a queer and trans Muslim creator on TikTok opens you up to the possibility of

05:35blackmail, to the possibility of your videos going around and being circulated and reaching

05:40your parents, reaching your family, reaching people in your origin country.

05:44So I run the risk of being targeted by governments, by the Jordanian government for my opinions.

05:50And I run that risk every single day, but choose to ignore that risk.

05:55On one hand, it can be scary and I worry about folks.

06:00And at the same time, I know that the more of us that become visible on that app, the

06:05stronger that we are as a community.

06:15I realized, hey, people are following me because they actually want to listen to the thoughts

06:20that I have, these critical opinions that I have of the Muslim community at large.

06:26I might as well hold my ground.

06:28I have literally nothing to lose.

06:30I just lost my family.

06:31I just lost my home.

06:32There's nothing else going for me at this point.

06:35Let's talk about it.

06:37Being Somali and queer, like the one thing I always felt was loneliness, like from a

06:41very young age, I always felt lonely.

06:43And I don't know, even though I am 26, I'm going to just to see, OK, like, hold up.

06:49Like it is like killing my inner child.

06:51With all the hate and with all the threats and with all the dangers that come with being

06:56on this platform, there are countless queer and trans Muslims that leave comments that

07:02are beautiful, that send me messages.

07:05Being on there in community with other, you know, folks that had similar experiences to

07:10me was so igniting and it was so full of life that all of the hate, all of that stuff

07:18really didn't it didn't land in the in the same way.

07:21Being confident in my queer and trans self, that is something that I was never able to

07:26do.

07:27Doing that on TikTok is so empowering because it's so in your face.

07:31And if you want to comment, hey, do that.

07:33But my video is still up.

07:34Someone who doesn't necessarily feel that way still about their queer and transness

07:39and their Islam.

07:40They look at that and they see, oh, like there is a world where I can feel confident in myself

07:46and there is a world where I can be queer and trans and Muslim and be incredibly loud

07:52about it.

07:53That is an option for people if they're safe and if they're able to to do that.

07:58My hope is that we become part within the larger Muslim community, like very visibly

08:05known and very visibly able to be pointed out that like, you know, queer and trans Muslims

08:12are well alive, thriving within our community and they're creating, you know, their own

08:19like subgroup within within the Ummah.

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